Within a very short time, Jamal Musiala has made himself indispensable both at FC Bayern Munich and in the German national team. The 19-year-old’s gala performance in the all-important 4-0 win over Bayer 04 Leverkusen was just further proof of that.
Narrow shoulders and just a beard on the upper lip: Jamal Musiala looks like a teenager, which of course could be because he is one. At the age of 19, he will have a position in German football in autumn 2022 that no one of his age has ever had before him.
The fact that he has exceptional talent has been evident since his first professional appearances around two and a half years ago. The fact that his two teams are now quite dependent on his talent is new. One after the other, Musiala saved the DFB and FC Bayern from crises that threatened to escalate.
First, Musiala led the DFB-Elf to a 3-3 win in England with a stake in the first two goals, becoming Germany’s great hope for the World Cup despite a generally rather mixed team performance. Then he led Bayern Munich with two assists and one goal to a 4-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen.
“He’s a key player for both teams. He’s often responsible for decisive situations. Jamal is one of the most important players we have,” praised his almost twice his age captain Manuel Neuer after the win against Leverkusen.
After four consecutive Bundesliga games without a win, FC Bayern and coach Julian Nagelsmann managed the hoped-for liberation. Rarely has a player been as formative in a win as Musiala was in this one. Not only because of his three goals, but in general because of his filigree dribbling, his creative ideas, his opening passes.
Jamal Musiala’s gala performance against Leverkusen
Before the 1-0, Musiala duped Mitchel Bakker with a body deception before he served Leroy Sané in the middle “in the classic, old-fashioned way of football,” as Thomas Müller analyzes – and of course wanted it to be understood as praise: “A firm, early game Crossing in from the side – to find that with us these days is wonderful.”
In the course of Nagelsmann’s desperate search for the most correct of the wrong nines against Leverkusen, Müller had once again been entrusted with the striker. In fact, it worked quite well this time, which was mainly due to Musiala positioned behind him. “We have a good connection,” praised Müller. The best example was the 2-0. Strong forwarding Müller, Tor Musiala. Incidentally, his fifth in this Bundesliga season, which puts him at the top of the club’s internal top scorer list.
Before the third goal, Musiala was involved in the pressing ball recovery deep in the opponent’s half, which was quite exemplary: Musiala has recently developed visibly, especially in the game against the ball, and despite his slight stature, he now seems surprisingly robust. Already in the German draw in London, he initiated a goal with a strong ball win against the much more robust-looking Harry Maguire.
Back to Munich: Musiala ultimately passed the ball to Sadio Mané, who ended his goal crisis with the goal to make it 3-0. Musiala prepared two more Mané chances even better. Once with a heel, then with a dribble against five – five? Yes, five – Leverkusen. Mané went on to score, but the goal was rightly disallowed for a previous foul by Matthijs de Ligt.
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“In certain situations you like to give him the ball and say: ‘Okay, now I’ll play to Jamal because we know what he can do with the ball,'” explained Müller. That means: if no one knows what to do next, the youngest person has to take care of it. Such behavior, such statements naturally create enormous pressure, but pressure does not seem to bother Musiala.
Look at the international match in England: after the disillusioning 1-0 draw against Hungary, fans, pundits and so-called pundits unanimously and vehemently demanded a starting eleven for Musialas. In his old home country, of all places, for which he even played until the U21s. The expectations were huge, but not too high for Musiala.
Possibly also a bit as a confirmation of his performance, he was then allowed to hear from the England national coach that his change of association was “a shame”. “You know how hard we tried to keep him,” said Gareth Southgate. “But he trained with Bayern Munich with eight German internationals who influenced him.”
Jamal Musiala is “undroppable” at DFB and FCB
Some of these are national players, with whom Musiala now competes for playing time both in the club and in the DFB team. Müller, Sané, Serge Gnabry for example. However, now they tend to compete with each other. Neither national coach Hansi Flick nor his Bayern counterpart Nagelsmann could currently justify Musiala’s bank place in an important game.
“Undroppable” was the title of the English Association’s stadium magazine for the international match in London. A wonderful word of the English football language, for which unfortunately there is no perfect German translation. Not to be removed from the starting XI by the coach rationally because of outstanding performance, somehow. It’s not just his talent that makes Musiala “undroppable”, but also his consistency.
Musiala has not yet experienced a real crisis of form since breaking through to the professional level. “Jamal shows from game to game that he is very consistent,” said CEO Oliver Kahn. “He always manages to get to his upper performance level.” And that, again as a reminder: at only 19 years of age.
